In the recent years, as the use of portable terminals is increased and information required for a person to memorize is increased, dependency on an address book grows. In addition, with the growth of dependency on an address book, the functions of the address book are diversified.
Meanwhile, such an address book has a plurality of pieces of contact information registered therein that are indicated in a simple arrangement based on a predetermined value, for example, in an alphabetical order or designated numbers in general. Accordingly, such a configuration increases the time and effort required to search for desired contact information among a plurality of pieces of contact information registered in the address book, in proportion to the amount of information registered in the address book.
According to a conventional method of solving such an inconvenience, communications of each contact information recorded in an address book are counted and each contact information is given a weight, and based on the weight, a shortcut icon for contact information having a high frequency of communications is automatically generated on a background of a portable terminal.
However, such a method only improves the approachability to predetermined contact information having a high frequency of communications based on only the number of communications, and has a limitation in predicting the relevance or affinity between a plurality of pieces of contact information registered in the address book and a user.
Another conventional technology provides a technology for cumulatively managing the duration and the number of talks of each contact information registered in an address book, and if a search request for a certain contact information is made by a user, the number and duration of talks occurring during a predetermined period of time are indicated.
However, such a conventional technology only provides the duration and the number of talks, and fails to disclose a method of intuitively recognizing the relationship or the affinity between a plurality of pieces of contact information registered in an address book and a user.